Lola, the whole amazing story

Alexandra called me last night and told me this:
There is a pet shop very close to her place, and she went there to buy food and toys for the beast. Since she's a good person, she described Lola to the shop owner and asked whether anybody had reported her missing.
No, said the shop owner, but I know her of course.
What?
Well, said the shop owner, you see, there is this kind of alpha female cat who takes care of all the motherless little ones. Lola was one of the bunch, but now that she's old and strong enough to take care of herself, Alpha Mum kicked her out.

I'm still amazed. I have to get to know Alpha Mum. Lola is flea-free, mite-free, healthy and well nourished, not to mention so well socialized that you'd never even begin to imagine she hasn't been living with humans.
Kudos to the shop owner, too, because he built them a cat shelter in the courtyard and occasionally feeds them, as do the people living there. Some money is going to find its way to him very soon, and maybe I can arrange castration for some of the kittens.

I've encountered only one similar case so far, i.e. a stray cat actively choosing a home and human, and that was in Ankara: Christian, our First Secretary (we were there together for a year) had a girlfriend (now his wife and mother of his two daughters) who worked at the German Embassy. She, too, was chosen by a stray boy cat, and he, too, was totally at ease with humans and had very obviously decided he'd had enough of living in the street and wanted a home.

Cats. Gotta love them.

And Alexandra, who of course went to have a look at the cat shelter, has already cast her eye on another kitten -- it's only two months old, and she's going to leave it with Alpha Mum till after New Year. And then I suppose Lola will get a companion.
*iz happy and gooey*

Remember, you've got cats, so you're not going to go crazy

Mr H called and asked whether I could come round to his office around 12.30, so we could talk and have lunch afterwards.
So I called Stelios and moved our lunch to tomorrow. (They have almost the same voice. I think I'm in trouble)
But I certainly didn't want to cancel or shorten my Macedonian lesson, which goes from 11.40 to 12.40, so I told him I'd be there shortly before 1p.m.
I don't want Mr H-infatuation to sneak back in, camouflaged as empathy.
I don't want to be highly sensitive to lovely, mellow baritone voices.
I don't want to fall for the bloody Greek, because he has the same voice as Mr H or indeed for any other reason.
Curse my soft, big heart that doesn't allow me to just say no to somebody in need of a friend, even though I know exactly that we aren't really what you'd call friends.

This litany, however, shouldn't give you the impression that I'm unhappy or suffering or whatever.
I'm fine, just watching myself and thinking, "PW dearest, you're so fucked-up, please consider taking a longer holiday and having lots of therapy sessions with that great therapist you went to before you left for Ankara. Or, alternatively, try to get laid ASAP. It'll take off a lot of pressure, and you'll see that your hypersensitivity to erotic male voices will decrease. Or not, but then you'll at least have had sex."

BTW, I think I've discovered a reasonable Stelios-lookalike: the younger Mario Vargas LLosa. Not 100%, but reasonable:

Green eyes. Oh, bugger.

Lunch -- not quite back to square one, but I had to go back and buy a lottery ticket

The question is, do men understand if you tell them things in a roundabout way?

Like for example:
Mr H enters the restaurant (we'd agreed to meet right there), I get up to greet him.
Mr H, between the first and the second hello kiss: Careful there, you know I harass women.
Me: Oh, really. Well, I'm waiting.
Second kiss.
Me: As harassment goes, this wasn't too spectacular.
Mr H: Which goes to prove...
Me: Nothing. Or maybe only that it's me, not you. I'm beginning to feel kinda left out.

Or:
Mr H: So why do you think ... made this accusations against me? You should know, he's Austrian.
Me: To be very frank, I think it's mostly a male thing.
Mr H: ?
Me: He hates you.
Mr H: ??
Me: Look, he's what? 1,65 and not exactly an Adonis. Stands to reason he would feel some sort of primal male hate against a tall, gorgeous guy, don't you think?
Mr H: Erm, uh, I don't know...
Me: Of course you don't know. It would be difficult to find a specimen you could hate for the same reasons, wouldn't it?

Apart from the more or less witty banter, it was a nice lunch with actual conversation.
They haven't fired him yet, and let's see whether they will. Unfortunately it's impossible right now to get information from Vienna, but I might be able to get something while I'm in Vienna.
Anyway, today he gave me the 37-page-long rebuttal he wrote re. the allegations levelled against him, so that will make for some nice reading. His mind is certainly more organized than those of his detractors. As for the content, we'll have to see.

I'm very curious how things are going to develop -- less regarding myself, because, even though I'm certainly not as immune as I thought, I'm feeling much, well, safer, more grounded and less vulnerable. If it's really a friend he needs, I'm here. If all he wants is an influential ally, I'm not the right person. And if he's finally understood that I'd love to jump him, well, that wouldn't be bad.
He's going to a conference outside Skopje tonight, and then to Paris for a few days to recharge the batteries. We'll both be back in Skopje next Wednesday. I told him -- very firmly -- that next weekend he's going to play tennis with me, on the grounds that he evidently needs to play with a bad player. (He'd told me that, if he plays with a strong player, his body goes on autopilot while his mind runs free, which right now isn't too good because it keeps running  back to his problems which, combined with physical exertion, makes it worse instead of better)
I also bravely resisted the temptation to reply "I could still eat you up whole" to his complaint that he was gaining weight due to not playing tennis right now, and merely observed that, yes, he was maybe a bit chubbier than two months ago.

At least I haven't been reduced to a gibbering, mindless wreck by having lunch with him which, all things considered, isn't so bad.

And tomorrow lunch with the Greek. Heh.